Comment by briandear | Hacker News Reader

Comment by briandear | Hacker News Reader

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The only thing is that this isn't anti-trust. If you want to use a google product, then you have to follow the google rules. I think the rules are a bit ridiculous, but YouTube doesn't have a monopoly on online videos. Well, except maybe cat videos.. so there might be a case in there somewhere. No app or company has a "right" to create Youtube apps. For anti-trust, one would have to prove a monopoly and they would be difficult despite the ubiquitousness of Youtube.

Also, Google isn't preventing Microsoft from creating a Youtube app, they are only requiring that it meet certain requirements. Since Microsoft is a direct competitor in the search (and therefore advertising) space, it's not unfounded that Google do what they're doing.

I personally think it's crap, however Microsoft brought this on themselves by blatantly violating the Terms of Service.

However, when all is said and done, Microsoft deserves it -- they are, after all responsible for Internet Explorer and while it isn't related to Youtube, they deserve to suffer for all of the hours and hours developers have spent trying to make their products compatible with that hell-demon of a browser.

I'm not so sure. You don't have to prove a monopoly. You have to show a selective targeting of a competitor. Manufacturer's using Google as a search engine allegedly have a different set of standards for their YouTube app than manufacturer's that don't use Google as search default. Whether or not that's how things actually transpired, it sure smells awfully fishy to an FTC regulator. This isn't about following rules or APIs, it's about provoking regulatory authorities to investigate Google so they maneuver more conservatively. And watch, now that Windows app will be approved post haste!

You actually do have to show a monopoly. A monopoly is prohibited from doing certain things that would be perfectly legitimate if a smaller competitor did it.

Example 1: The EU required Microsoft to offer a version of Windows with a browser choice screen. However, Apple does not have to offer an alternative to Safari. Reason: Windows was a monopoly, but Mac OS X wasn't.

Example 2: The EU permitted Windows Phone and Windows RT to default to IE, without offering a choice of other browsers. Reason: Windows Phone does not have a monopoly of the smartphone market, and Windows RT does not have a monopoly of the tablet market.

According to http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/video-websites YouTube gets 450,000,000 uniques against NetFlix who get 55,000,000. I'd argue there different markets and the key comparable would be dailymotion at 27,000,000. I think there is a good chance it'd pass the monopoly test.

The lead that Youtube has over Dailymotion is enormous. It's higher than the ratio of PCs to Macs at the time of the Microsoft antitrust case.

(Which is why the DOJ defined the market as the one for x86 PC operating systems. That excluded Mac OS from being considered a competitor to Windows, as it ran only on PowerPC at the time.)

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